Hudson Blough

Hudson Blough, an athletic teen hooked on skiing and swimming, was having a great day on the slopes with friends at Banff Sunshine Ski Village. He was on a double black diamond run and sped up before a turn.

“I remember starting to bomb down the run, and then after that, there’s nothing,” said Blough.

He’d hit a tree headfirst. Although he has no memory of it, those who kept him alive recall the collaborative response, including one highly skilled STARS doctor.

“This is an unbelievable success story… on so many levels,” said Dr. Paul Tourigny, STARS transport physician and volunteer ski patroller for Banff Sunshine. “You could not have asked for a better alignment of the stars.”

When Hudson’s incident occurred, he was ahead of his friends and they couldn’t see him, but they did see a tree shake and its snow fall. Then, they found Hudson laying stunned beneath it.

“My jaw was completely fractured in two spots on both sides, and the bone was sticking out into my mouth,” he said.

His friends quickly alerted Banff Sunshine Ski Patrol, and senior ski patroller Sean McConkey was the incident commander at the scene.

“From what I could see from his injuries, I was suspecting a pretty severe head trauma,” said McConkey.

The team placed Hudson into a specialized sled behind a snowmobile, restricting his spinal motion and propping him up to help manage his breathing.

“We could tell that he was losing consciousness,” said McConkey. “At that point, it was really clear that we needed to contact STARS as quickly as possible.”

Hudson’s mom Abby Blough was at home when she heard the news.

“When they said that STARS was on the way, that they were going to send STARS to airlift him back to Calgary, we knew that it was a far more serious accident than we had even imagined,” she said.

Tourigny happened to be on the slopes that day and was called immediately to assess and stabilize Hudson.

“On the way down, he began to seize and deteriorate,” said Tourigny. “Seizures are essentially going around your house and turning off all the switches.”

When Hudson said he couldn’t see, Tourigny’s concern grew. He needed to take over Hudson’s airway as soon as possible.

“I was worried that if we didn’t get him looked after very quickly, he was going to die,” he said.

Hudson was moved inside a Banff EMS ground ambulance that was waiting in the parking lot, and Tourigny set to work, expertly intubating Hudson as the STARS helicopter landed a few metres away.

When STARS flight paramedic Greg Barton and flight nurse Kellie Ann Vogelaar opened the rear doors of the ambulance, Tourigny had just completed the intubation.

“This is the type of patient that would have been a very challenging airway with his head injury, even for a very experienced practitioner,” said Vogelaar. “It was reassuring to see Dr. Tourigny in the back and that he had completed that skill. Those minutes that mattered were already completed.”

In short order, Hudson was transferred to the STARS stretcher and in flight to Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary. During the 30-minute flight, Barton and Vogelaar managed Hudson’s airway and monitored his vital signs. Their largest concerns, though, were potential brain bleeding and swelling.

STARS transport physician Dr. Katie Lin, assigned to the call from inside the STARS Emergency Link Centre, authorized them over the radio to give anti-seizure medication.

“It was very important to prevent any further seizures,” said Vogelaar. “We were really concerned about any further brain injury.”

Soon, Hudson was at the trauma centre and in the care of specialized providers. In addition to the facial injuries, they also found a collapsed lung and a skull fracture.

“Hudson spent three weeks in the ICU after his accident, mostly tending to the brain injury,” said his mom, Abby. “We had three weeks of imagining what life might look like. He may never walk again. He may never talk again. Those were really scary weeks.”

When Hudson woke up, those fears vanished.

“Within days, he wanted to get up and walk around,” said his dad, Matt Blough.

Hudson made a full recovery; in a few weeks, he returned to competitive swimming, and he was back on the slopes the next winter.

“The way that Ski Patrol was able to work with STARS and all the personnel on the scene and in the ambulance and in the helicopter, it all just came together so well and made this the best possible outcome,” Hudson smiled.

“We are grateful,” said his mom. “It’s not a big enough word.”